【SC】Endless Journey

Chapter 21

Sephiroth roughly talked about how the research institute found Cloud's crystal in the big cavity, and how he used Cloud's cells to clone himself.When talking about the growth experience with Claude in the institute, he deliberately skipped all the parts involving the intimate relationship between the two.Those were his and Cloud's memories, and he refused to share them with anyone.

Genesis was listening to his story with a bit of a theater mentality. After all, the fact that Sephiroth recognized Claude as his mother was too absurd, enough for him to laugh for the next hundred years.But as Sephiroth's narration deepened, he realized that things were not simple.

"Why did they stop the follow-up experiments after cloning you and Strife?" Genesis pointed out the doubts.

Sephiroth thought for a few seconds, "Because their purpose is to clone Cloud?"

"According to what you said, the purpose of this sect is to resurrect the savior to save mankind, so there should be as many clones of Strife as possible. But it seems that they cloned one and stopped. Isn't that strange?"

"What is the basis for thinking so?"

Genesis closed the poetry collection, leaned slightly towards Sephiroth, and made a mysterious expression.

"In the old Shinra era, the Shinra company had scientists with poor personalities and academic abilities-you must not remember this person-in short, this scientist named Holland, after defecting from Shinra , using my cells to create an army of clones. This army almost wiped out the Shinra Corporation at the time, and once caused a lot of trouble to the world.”

This is something Sephiroth never thought about.He pondered for a while, and asked following the other party's train of thought: "Since we are of the same kind, my cells will also be made into a replica army?"

"Good question." Genesis sat back on the sofa and lazily raised one leg, "Of course there is another scientist with worse character who created many copies of you. But your situation is quite special, basically All clones on the planet turned into progeria without self-awareness, so your cloning project was a total failure, and no one ever tried to clone you again."

Sephiroth thought of those embryos he had strangled in the cradle. If he thought there could only be one Sephiroth on this planet, then the rest of the embryos were doomed to perish at some point at his will, and so could the replicas. The reason is that it cannot sustain itself.But Genesis doesn't seem to know about it yet, and he doesn't want to reveal too much.

"What about Claude? His cells can clone me, so he should have been able to make me or his clone?"

When he heard this sentence, Genesis' eyes suddenly became very subtle: "So you forgot even this matter."

"What?" Sephiroth frowned slightly.

Genesis folded his arms and seemed to be thinking of an answer.After a while, he looked back at Sephiroth: "How much do you know about yourself and Strife's origins?"

Sephiroth thought for a while, then objectively assessed: "Not much."

Most of what he knew was speculated based on Catholme's last words, his own dreams, and the legends of the Redeemer Order. Except for Murasame and Masamune, Claude hardly mentioned any useful information to him.

Genesis saw some clues from his expression, and immediately became interested: "Tell me?"

"I am... the calamity that planned to destroy the planet 200 years ago." Sephiroth added slowly while thinking, "According to the legend, I am probably a descendant of some kind of life that fell from the universe more than 2000 years ago. I summoned Meteor 200 years ago, Claude stopped and killed me, and humans were saved. But Claude is not actually a human, and he is of the same kind as me?"

"He used to be human." Genesis corrected, confirming the rest by the way.

This fits perfectly with what Crowder said.Sephiroth held his chin, lost in thought for a while.

Claude used to be a human being, but Claude's cells can clone itself, which means that Claude may have acquired a gene for disaster, and he himself is some kind of product of C-cell alienation.Judging from the cloning results of the research institute, this kind of alienation occurs stably, but it is very rare for C-11 to maintain its original form.This is very strange, because gene mutation is a small probability and completely random event in nature. Unless the research institute deliberately induces mutations in C cells, most clones should be like C-11.But the purpose of the research institute is to completely clone Claude, and it should not tamper with the genes of C cells.

Sephiroth thought for a long time, and remembered another question that had troubled him since the day he left the institute: "I was cloned from Cloud's cells, but most of the embryos in the institute's cloning experiments were not cloned. Claude's characteristics are more similar to mine. Carter Holm said that I am not a clone of Claude, which cannot be explained from the experimental process, but it seems to be correct from the results. What is the relationship between us?"

"Catholm?" Genesis keenly grasped the key point, "The person in charge of the cloning project you just mentioned? Did he tell you that?"

Sephiroth was noncommittal, but the other party had already stood up and his expression became extremely serious.

"This matter should only be known to Strife himself. How did he know... No, who is he?"

Sephiroth vaguely had a premonition that he was about to get close to the truth, so he took out the communication terminal, logged into the mailbox he used in the research institute, and found Catholm's profile picture in the schedule.

"Do you have any impression of this person?" He pushed the terminal to Genesis's eyes.

Genesis glanced down, and exclaimed a little: "Hojo?!"

"Who is that?" Sephiroth heard a name he had never heard before.

Genesis turned a deaf ear to his questioning, as if he had just seen someone who shocked him.After a while, the other party started pacing back and forth in the room.

"...No, it's impossible. Hojo is dead. If this person is really Hojo, Strife can't ignore it... But Strife even ignores you, maybe he has him reason……"

Genesis kept mumbling to himself, and his footsteps became more and more restless.About 10 minutes later, the other party seemed to suddenly think of something, and suddenly turned to him.

"But if you follow Hojo's line of thought, it all makes sense. The reason he dug up Strife's crystal is because he needs S cells, and he only cloned one Strife after cloning you. He stopped because he only needed a living S-cell donor. His purpose was not to clone Claude Strife in the first place, but to clone you. He knew you were not reproducible, so He's not even going to try it."

Genesis returned to the collection of poems and made an elegant curtain call to the non-existent audience, "This reasoning is simply perfect, to the supremely wise Lappsodos."

It was the first time Sephiroth heard some of this information, and asked subconsciously: "Why is it an S cell instead of a C cell? What is S—"

When he saw Genesis' meaningful smile, he hesitated for a moment and finally came to his senses.

—Sephiroth.

Those were his initials.

A completely new world gradually opened up to Sephiroth. He never thought of this possibility. The research institute actually uses his cells as the basic system for research.But if this thing holds true, a serious paradox arises.

"My embryo was cloned from Claude's cells. In other words, Claude is my mother. Why are his cells named after me?" Sephiroth questioned again.

"Have you ever thought that if most of Strife's clones look like you, and you don't look like him at all, maybe he is not your mother?" Genesis induced him to continue thinking .

"Impossible, I have read our test report, and the genetic sequencing is 99.99% consistent." Sephiroth blurted out.

At this moment, he suddenly realized the problem.Genesis noticed this and encouraged him to continue talking with teasing eyes.

"You mean, actually..."

——I am his mother.

Sephiroth was shocked by his own thoughts.

But countless evidence points to this fact, but for a long time he believed too much in the experimental records of the institute, thus ignoring this fundamental logical contradiction.

Genesis spun around in satisfaction, fell back on the sofa lightly, and opened the poetry collection.

"'The mystery of the abyss is a gift from the goddess.'" He raised his head and looked at Sephiroth, who was still immersed in his own thoughts, with a subtle arc on his lips, "Have you heard of 'Jenova' ?"

The moment the unfamiliar word was spoken, a severe headache hit Sephiroth.

Again the cacophony he had heard in the snow was ringing in his head, like hundreds of broken radios screaming over and over in his head, all of a sudden tuned to the same channel at some point.

"Reunion."

The bright green pupils shrank like a snake.

"Re...union." Sephiroth suppressed his headache and squeezed out the word through clenched teeth, "...what is it?"

Genesis glanced at him, and slightly suppressed the smile on his face: "You remember?"

"Not yet." Sephiroth took a deep breath, and his headache gradually subsided.He shook his head, pushing the noise out of his head. "Continue with the topic just now. Who is Xenovia?"

Genesis returned his eyes to the collection of poems in his hand, paused, and began to speak in a poetic tone.

"Our planet is a living planet, and the will of the planet is called Gaia.

2000 Two hundred years ago, a meteorite hit the Arctic region, creating a huge void.The void still exists today, where the fountain of life runs straight to the core of the planet.

The falling meteors brought disasters outside the sky, and the disasters spread on the planet, polluting and devouring the life on the planet.At that time, an ancient intelligent race called Settra lived on the planet.They gathered the power of the whole family to seal the disaster, and the planet passed 2000 years safely.

Until 200 years ago, Calamity woke up again.After 2000 years of being frozen, Calamity began to retaliate against the planet.The planet summoned weapons, but it still couldn't stop the disaster from attacking.Many lives were lost and the world was at stake.

With the help of the power in the universe, the disaster caused the meteorite to strike the planet for the second time.Human beings tried their best to defeat the disaster, but they were powerless to stop the falling meteor.At the last moment, the planet activated holy magic and successfully protected all life.The place we live in today is the remains of that disaster. "

"..."Song of Gaia"." Sephiroth whispered.

"You know this book?" Genesis was quite surprised by this.

Sephiroth looked at the snowflakes flying outside the window and fell into a long silence.

He was only six years old when he read this book for the first time. At that time, he and Claude were still in the research institute, and the other party's self-awareness had not yet awakened, but he still believed that he was the savior of the future.He remembered three-year-old Claude sitting on his bed with a book in his arms, a small and soft ball, fluffy blond hair like a chick that had just hatched, and blue pupils full of admiration and nostalgia for him.

Thinking of that scene now seems like a lifetime ago, but he was unexpectedly not angry at Claude's deception.On a certain level, he even misses the time when he had the other party. His old enemy provided him with the initial and perhaps final sense of belonging in his life, allowing him to truly have a family.When he thought of that experience, the first thing he thought of was not the pain on the operating table, but the warmth of their hugging and sleeping together.

Genesis waited a long time, realizing that Sephiroth hadn't intended to answer the question from the start, so he continued.

"Jenova, that is, the disaster that fell on the planet two hundred years ago in 2000, was once sealed in the void of Peking University by ancient species. About 250 years ago, there was a genius scientist named Dr. Gast in Shinra Company. A female corpse was found in the geological layer 2000 years ago, named Jenova, and then brought back to the laboratory to conduct a series of studies."

"At first Gast thought he had found the ancient race of Settras who were almost extinct 2000 years ago. In some legends about the ancient race, this group knew that there was a piece of the planet called the 'Promised Land', where there were endless Energy can be mined, Shinra Corporation is very interested in this. But when Gast and another scientist named Baojo started the plan to revive the ancient species, they found that what they found was not the ancient species, but parasitic on the The alien creature on the ancient female corpse. Gast knew what he had found and regretted it very much, so he withdrew from the project. But Hojo was quite fanatical about the research of Jenova, and he led a series of using Jenova The project of genetically modifying organisms, including allowing a female scientist to conceive a child with Jenova's genes, and finally the child was born in the institute and was named Sephiroth."

……I see.

A flood of memories suddenly flooded Sephiroth's mind.

A crazy smile very similar to Catholm, a dark and damp underground library, a burning village surrounded by mountains, a huge female corpse soaked in a demon, and when he was suddenly pierced by a sharp blade while standing in front of a demon tank , Turning around to see Claude Strife.

"Give mother...give the village back to me!"

It was the trembling crying sound that he was very familiar with.

"I used to respect and admire you so much, but you—"

He remembered that the human beings 200 years ago were so arrogantly playing with their mother's genes, creating countless absurd lives, and enslaving those monsters to kill each other on the battlefield.He hated the world the moment he discovered the truth, so he slaughtered everyone he saw in Nibelheim, including Cloud's mother.

When he returned to the magic furnace and tried to retrieve Xenovia, he was pierced by the grief-stricken Claude with the destruction sword. After that, he fell into the magic pool, drifted to the North Cave, and then fell into the ice. seal up.

"Reunion."

Sephiroth took a sharp breath, as if he suddenly found himself after a long sleep.

He finally knew the meaning of that desperate look in Claude's eyes before he left.When his body was frozen in the big hole, Baotiao took away Cloud, who was severely injured by him, and implanted his own cells in the opponent. After that, Cloud lost his human body and replaced it with The body of a super-soldier far exceeding human strength, reconstructed from his cells.And as the master of all S cells, he naturally has absolute control over Claude, so he unconsciously controlled Claude that night, making the other party seem to have a relationship with him voluntarily.

Genesis noticed his change, and his expression immediately became vigilant.

"How much do you remember?" The other party slowly held the hilt of the sword.

"...a part of life."

Sephiroth looked at his hand, fingers opened and closed repeatedly.The returning power didn't exactly match the age of his body, which made him feel a sense of disobedience.

"What about the Great Hole?"

"do not remember."

He stood up, walked to the window, gently opened a gap with the handle of the knife, and the cold wind immediately rolled snowflakes into the house.

"But I shouldn't have done that. I can only sense its existence, but I can't control it."

Some kind of unknown existence that attacked him was still lurking in the blizzard-filled night, and seemed to be watching him and Genesis in a corner that no one cared about, waiting for an opportunity to move.

Sephiroth closed the window, walked back to the fireplace, and threw a few pieces of firewood into the fire.He turned up the flames more intensely, and then the cold green vertical eyes turned to Genesis.

"You want me to restore my memory so much, what is your appeal, let me hear it?"

The last trace of relief on Genesis's face faded away, replaced by a certain expression of facing a formidable enemy.

"You can make a choice now. Make an enemy of the planet, or give up this plan."

A layer of cold sweat involuntarily oozes from the palm of Genesis holding the sword, but his body is excited by the upcoming battle.He has been waiting for this opportunity for five years, and he finally has the opportunity to prove that he can beat the opponent.

He thought he was doing it very covertly, but Sephiroth had already seen it all.The other party glanced at his right hand lightly, and let out a soft snort: "Oh. If I choose the former, you plan to kill me."

"This is Gaia's will." Genesis slid his fingers across the blade, and the inscription flashed an ominous red light, "If what you said is true, Strife should have died before you grew up." Kill you, but he didn't do it, I don't know what he was thinking. But it doesn't matter, he may not be the only one in this world who can defeat you, I will personally correct the planet's perception of this matter."

At the moment when the atmosphere in the room was tense, Sephiroth seemed to be awakened by a certain point in his speech, and his thoughts drifted away again.

Genesis waited for a long time, but the other party didn't intend to draw his sword, so he couldn't help asking again: "So what is your decision?"

Sephiroth finally came back to his senses, his pupils sparkled suddenly: "You're right."

"What?" Genesis froze.

"Claude had countless opportunities to kill me, but he didn't." Sephiroth's expression was inexplicably relieved, and then a smile appeared on his lips that made his hair stand on end, "This shows one thing."

"...what's the matter." Genesis had a bad feeling.

"He loves me."

With a loud bang, the red sword fell heavily to the ground.

Genesis stared dumbfounded at Sephiroth, who was completely immersed in his emotions, and his world view was hit by an unprecedented impact.

After a full 3 minutes, he barely recovered his voice: "Are you serious?!" Then he thought of a ridiculous but reasonable explanation, "Do you think he really treats you as... his son?"

"Why is it impossible?" Sephiroth glanced at him with a very disappointed look, then walked back to the sofa and sat down, "You might as well ask him this question. Now let's talk about the big void."

…When a joke crosses the line of ethics, it becomes a little scary.Now Genesis can't wait to go back to the self who strangled and asked the exit 3 minutes ago.

"The Big Void? What's going on there?"

Claude's mood had stabilized a little, so Nanaki jumped off his lap, went to the other side of the coffee table and squatted down.

"It's a long story."

"After your crystal disappeared, something appeared in the big void." Vincent took out the communication terminal from his arms, turned on the projection, and showed him a few photos.

At first, Claude only saw an ordinary frozen land, and the cave was glowing a faint green due to the fluorescence of the stream of life.But when he carefully observed the glittering ice crystals on the ground, he realized that it was not ordinary ice and snow, but a layer of silvery, creep-like substance.This substance covered all the exposed black rock masses in the large cavity, making the entire part close to the earth's core covered in silvery white, like some kind of lichen growing in the tundra.

"What is this...?" Claude tried to recall the big hole before he fell asleep, and confirmed that there was no sign of life in it.What's more, the concentration of life stream there is too high, almost like a demon, and ordinary life cannot survive at the bottom of the big void.

"This is the scene I saw when I went to the Big Hollow for the penultimate time." Vincent called up another six-hour video and played it at twenty times the speed. This time, Claude discovered that the thing was not standing still. On the ground, it slowly spread outward like some kind of viscous fluid.

"What did it do?" Claude frowned slightly.

"It may sound unbelievable, but it is growing rapidly on the stream of life." Vincent lowered his collar and said in a very low voice: "In other words, it is eroding the core of the planet."

Claude was stunned for a second, and immediately realized the seriousness of the matter.

He took the terminal, flipped through the photos quickly, and stopped at a place where his crystal should have been, and that was the area where the creep outbreak was the worst.

"Have you figured out what it is?" Claude quickly recalled what happened during the 140 years of his sleep, but he couldn't think of any useful information for the time being.

"I collected a sample and sent it to the laboratory for testing. The closest record between Curry and its genes is-you."

Claude fell silent for a moment.

He knows what that means.If a creature's genes are close to him, it means that it is also an S cell owner.It is impossible for Claude to leave a cell group with autonomous consciousness in the big void, so Sephiroth is most likely to create it.

"...Do you think it's him?" Claude originally wanted to say the name, but when it came to his lips, it made his heart palpitate suddenly, so he swallowed the name with difficulty.

"I used to think so." Vincent didn't say the second half of the sentence, but Claude already understood what he meant.

The other party didn't know that Sephiroth's body had been resurrected in the research institute before, so such reasoning was completely logical.But now Vincent already knows that Sephiroth's body has been with him for the past five years, and he is in a state of complete amnesia, so this reasoning has been completely overturned from the root.

Claude pondered for a moment, then raised his head again. "After my crystal was taken away, this thing exploded in the big void, and it was some kind of S-cell life form. Only you knew my crystal was there, but a religious group found it, and Using my S cells to create Sephiroth... Do you think these things are related?"

"It's not impossible. If someone's ultimate goal is to spread Xenovia, then as long as there is a plan that works." Vincent nodded slightly.

While they were still thinking, Claude's communication terminal suddenly rang.He turned on the screen and found that it was White's email.

Two weeks had passed since he sent the email, and he had already given up hope on the matter, so it seemed a bit suspicious for White to reply suddenly at this time.Claude glanced at it, and immediately frowned.

"What happened?" Nanaki moved closer to him.

Claude handed the terminal to it and Vincent, and there was only one line in the mail.

—I'm in Nibelheim.I found out something about Catholm.

Vincent also couldn't help frowning: "This is too coincidental."

Claude pondered for a while, and told all the things he had suspected for a long time.When he mentioned that Catholm might be a clone of Hojo, Vincent quickly dismissed his idea.

"That's impossible." Vincent's tone was extremely affirmative, "everything about Hojo has disappeared, even the soul is not in the stream of life. I personally deal with this matter, and there will be no such thing on this planet. Any of his cells remain. Moreover, he has no relatives or descendants other than Sephiroth, so there is no possibility of passing through the generations."

Claude absolutely believed in the other party in this matter, but this made the whole matter even more confusing.

"If it's not a clone, what else would cause a person very similar to him to appear on the planet?" Claude unconsciously clenched his lower lip.

The two of them pondered for a long time, but Nanaki suddenly said, "Missing."

"...What?" Claude was in a daze for a moment, before reacting suddenly.

"Or, through someone's memory...Alice once said so."

As ancient races on the same planet, Nanaki and Alice have always maintained soul communication in some form.If Settra thinks it works, it probably has.

——Then who, through whose memory, created Catholm?

Claude had to turn his eyes back to the suspicious email.